[.ca] Myth Of The Holy Cow (ISBN 1859846769)

A book that has been rejected, despised, and burned in India:
A book that has been rejected, despised, and burned in India, The Myth Of The Holy Cow by D.N. Jha dares to challenge the traditional Hindu belief that the cow is a sacred animal. The Myth Of The Holy Cow makes the controversial claim that beef was an important ingredient in the cuisine of ancient India, long before the birth of Islam, and allowed in the Brahmanist and Buddhist diet. A meticulously researched, strongly worded, persuasively articulated challenge to long-held religious beliefs, The Myth Of The Holy Cow is a unique and iconoclastic contribution to the study of Hindu beliefs, practices, history, and customs.

Very poor scholarship:
The ancient Indians may have eaten beef, but the manner of analysis and the evidence provided by Jha amounts to very shoddy scholarship.

Recommended reading for learning essence pf hinduism:
Jha's book has only one drawback - it is short. It makes compelling and persuasive reading as it knits anthropological, common sense and traditions familiar to many Indians themselves to bring to light the transition to agriculture of a pastoral society. Beef has been a requirement and a central fixation in the Hindu system of thinking. Jha brings out the historical context in which a costly mistake was made in failing to develop beef and cattle in general as a commodity. Slowly, as India wakes up and stirs to exploit its heritage, beef is bound to come into fashion, or else the system would continue to be beset by instability. Jha's presentation reminds one of the need to persuade the high castes at the turn of the ninteenth century of the benefit of studying medicine and dissecting cadavers instead of treating it as a defilement of the pure hindus. Now it is clear that it was a necessary and correct step without which many of the purists of today would have died in their infancy.

Misguided spirit:
I have a hard time understanding why the government of India is even giving this book the respect of an issue. The book singles out adages,comments, opinions of certain Hindu priests, and common people during the times, who went against the culture as a whole, just like the author himself. The cow is a holy animal for the Hindus, and as a part of preserving nature and its balance( cows are scarcer in India than elsewhere in the world), and due to the unique value provided by the various milk products of the cow, the cow is sacred. I would consider the author and book he has written and anyone who reads it as Misguided.Of course its just my opinion I could be wrong.

Excellent example of how to misinterpret Indic texts:
The book in question is an substandard compilation that is replete with errors. To quote just a few examples specifically on Tamil Nad : on page 94,he says - "Beef and fish were usual items of dietary menu in south India as is evident in the sangam texts. One of them, in fact, refers to the brAhmaNa priest Kapilar speaking with relish and without fear of social ostracism about consuming liquor and meat." What Kapilar eats is meat, which will just mean a cockerel or goat. The problem is there is no mention of beef anywhere in CT texts. In fact, in all of Tamil litearture, in contrast to early vedic Sanskrit texts as given in Jha's book, we do not find descriptions of beef eating at all. In fact, MaNimEkalai epic tells a polemical story - a brahmin who stole a cow is called an untouchable. Also, prof. Jha tells about there is no cow goddess temple in India. However, there are famous temple legends where cow turning into Bhagavathi. And also the very famous Tamil legend about Chola king punishing his son with a death penalty for killing a calf in an accident. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Various Sanskrit texts are routinely mistranslated, with a distinct slant to the subject matter. But then, one could not have expected much better from a Communist Historian, who, in his book on ancient Indian history, has the gall to say that the declaration of cow as a holy animal in the Gupta period (4th century AD) sowed the seeds of Hindu communalism!!